Burn My Bridges Down
by dietplainlite
Summary: Molly didn't follow Sherlock when he left John and Mary's wedding. So how in the world did she wake up in his bed the next day?
1. Chapter 1

The thing about sleeping when you're drunk is that you really don't ever get to do it for long enough. Either a pounding headache or hunger or nausea or a weird combination of all three will wake you. Or you have to get up to be somewhere, like work or school. In this case, for Molly Hooper, it's the headache that wakes her. She cracks one eye and lets the morning light pierce her brain, then opens the other. The mildly spinning ceiling is not her own.

She sits up. The room is incredibly tidy and minimally decorated. The most prominent features are a large wardrobe and a framed poster of the periodic table.

She spots the morning suit hanging neatly on a hook on the wardrobe door and the row of suit jackets and trousers and shirts in the wardrobe. She sniffs the air and it is unmistakable.

Now how the fuck did she wind up in Sherlock's bed?

The last thing she remembers from the night before is kicking off her shoes on the dance floor after her fourth glass of champagne. Why had she been drinking so heavily and how the hell did she manage to get here?  
She hears movement in the kitchen. The clink of glass on glass. Running water. A Bunsen burner being lit.

She stumbles as she stands up, but the pounding in her head intensifies, so she sits back down with a low groan.

"There's paracetemol in the medicine cabinet," Sherlock says from the kitchen.

She's too mortified to speak and is thrilled to discover she can get to the loo from this room without going into the hall.

"Oh, hell," she says as she sees herself. Her makeup has run all over her face. There are actual black streaks running down her cheeks. Dehydration makes her skin sallow and her fine lines stand out more prominently. She washes most of it away (Sherlock has an astonishing array of skin care products) but can't be arsed to really scrub at her eyes. She finds the medicine and takes two with a handful of water, then does what she can with her hair.

"Right," she says, and goes back into his bedroom. She doesn't see her shoes or her bag so they must be in the sitting room. She hopes they're in the sitting room because otherwise they're just lost in the ether. Or maybe with Tom. "Shit. Tom," she says and pushes away from the sink.

He's standing in the kitchen, looking fresh as a daisy with his dressing gown thrown over his usual dress shirt and trousers. There are thin slices of what can only be a human kidney laid out on a baking sheet, and for the first time in over two decades Molly Hooper feels ill at the sight of a body part. She turns her attention back to Sherlock and they stare at each other until Molly can't bear to stand up anymore. She collapses into a chair and puts her head in her hands.

"How the hell did I get here, Sherlock?"

"In a taxi. Driver banged on my door at 1 in the morning, had a charge who had managed to leave her shoes and bag where he picked her up. Said he'd drop you off at the police station if I couldn't pay."

"I'll pay you back."

"No need. I told him the police might be interested in how he tampers with his meter and he lit out fairly quickly."

Molly smiles. Of course. That's what Sherlock does.

"Did I tell you why I was on your doorstep at 1 am?"

"You said you were worried about me."

"I'm sorry. I had a lot to drink."

"Obviously."

"What else?"

"Nothing much else. I told you I was fine and you started to cry. Then you ran to the loo, vomited profusely a few times, took that silly bow out of your hair and passed out on the sofa. "

"Oh god," she groans, lowering her head onto her folded arms. He puts a mug of tea in front of her. She takes it and sips it tentatively. Strong, hot, no sugar or milk. "Why did you move me? To your—bed—room?"

"Thought it would be more comfortable and I wasn't planning on sleeping."

She takes a few more sips of tea, letting it fortify her. Must be placebo since there's no way the caffeine could work that quickly. "Oh shit," she says, setting the mug down hard. "My phone is in my bag, wherever that is. I don't know if I told anyone I left. Has anyone called you-"

"Why would they do that?" he says.

"Be—because you're my friend," she says softly.

He sighs and pulls his phone from his pocket. "Six calls from an unfamiliar number. Is this him?" He holds the phone out to her.

"Yes. I should probably call him back."

Sherlock shrugs and walks over to the window, looking out with his hands in his pockets. Molly hits the button to redial Tom and holds the phone up to her ear shakily.

"Sherlock, er, hey I'm sorry to bug you but—"

"Tom, it's me," she says. Eight seconds of silence follow.

"You've got to be kidding me, Mols. Jesus I just called him thinking that maybe he'd know where you went since he's so bloody clever. No wonder he didn't answer."

"No, Tom. It's not like that. Nothing happened. I was drunk and I got sick and passed out."

"You're _with him_. You _went to him_. That's enough, Molly."

"I just wanted to see if he was okay. His best friend just got married and he's alone."

"Well, have fun keeping him company. I hope that's enough for you."

"Tom—"

"No, Molly. It hasn't been the same since he came back. Have a nice life. You can keep the ring." He disconnects and Molly stares at the phone for a moment. She rears her hand back to throw it but Sherlock grabs her hand, removes his phone and replaces it with a saucer. She looks at him, startled. How long had he been standing there?

"Please break that, instead," he says.

Molly replaces the saucer on the table and opts to punch Sherlock hard in the solar plexus. As he doubles over she pushes past him and over to retrieve her bow, which is peeking out from underneath the sofa.

"I have to go home. So I need some cash or your Oyster card or you can call your bloody brother to send a car, I don't care. I have to fix this."

"Why?" Sherlock wheezes, leaning on a kitchen chair for support.

"Why?"

Standing to his full height, he looks her in the eyes. "Yes. Why? Why do you need to fix it? It's what you wanted, isn't it?"

"Oh, you bastard!" Sherlock takes a step toward her and she thrusts her hand out. "No. Don't you dare," she sobs. "Why did you have to come back?" A small sting of regret hits her as he visibly deflates. She has never managed to hurt him like this, and she takes no victory in it, rejecting someone who has been rejected by so many. "No, I don't mean it like that. God dammit how did this end up with me comforting _you_?"

"Molly, I—"

"No, just listen." She flops onto the sofa and puts her head in her hands.

"May I?" he asks, gesturing to the other end of the sofa. She shrugs and he sits, staring straight ahead, posture stiff. He takes a tissue from his dressing gown pocket and hands it to her.

"Unused," he says. "In my line of work I never know when I'll have someone weeping on my sofa. You were saying?"

Molly laughs and blows her nose. There is a moment when she thinks she might throw up again but it passes. She looks ahead as she talks to him.

"I was certain I was past it all. I never would have said yes to Tom if I weren't. I wouldn't have said yes to a first date if I wasn't sure. I didn't really date, for that first year. My friends tried to set me up with so many guys. I didn't think it was fair. If I dated anyone, I wanted to give them a fair chance, not compare them to you.

"And then it got to the point where I didn't think about you as often. And when I did I would just remember you fondly and shake my head, like I do about my schoolgirl crushes. I reduced it to that so I could let it go." She looks at him and he turns his head to meet her gaze. "And then you came back and I realized I'd been lying to myself. But there was nothing to be done. I did love Tom and I thought I could just make a life with him and that once you'd been back for a while it would be okay. And I know I avoided you and I wasn't there for you but I just couldn't. I had to try to move on.

"Then, yesterday you were so fucking beautiful and you were sweet to John and Mary and then you solved that crime like that utter bad arse you are and it was just everything I love about you all at once. Your big heart and your massive brain and your gorgeous body and when I saw you leave, I wanted to follow you so badly. Not to leave with you or anything but to bring you back and tell you that you are loved, that John isn't abandoning you. But I couldn't, because it wasn't right. It wasn't my _place_. And then I guess I got totally pissed and left anyway and now here I am." She looks down at her hand and twists the ring around. What the hell is she going to do with it?

"Take it off," he says.

"What?"

"Take the ring off."

She looks up at him. He is as frightened as the night he'd come to her in the lab to ask her to help save his life. The ring slips off easily. It had always been a bit too big. It makes a soft click on the coffee table as she sets it down.


	2. Chapter 2

"What now?" Molly asks as she sits back, folding her hands in her lap.

"What do you want to do? " His voice is low, and if she's not imagining things, strained. Drawn tight with apprehension.

"Can I be honest with you?"

"Always."

"Part of me wants to drag you to your room and shag you until neither of us can move."

He inhales sharply and somehow sits up even straighter, looking at her with his mouth agape. She looks back down at her hands and laughs softly. "An even bigger part of me just wants to take a shower and have a good cry and maybe sleep for a few more hours—years."

"You could do both," he says, the words tumbling out in a rush and floating in the air between them as they stare at each other.

"You want to shag me, while I cry. In the shower?"

"God no. No!" he says, standing and stalking back to the kitchen. "I mean, with the crying part. Of course not. " He fiddles with the tea kettle again, filling it up and turning it back on, even though they never finished their first cups. "You could do the showering and crying and sleeping and then, if you still wanted. We could do—the other." He clears his throat and turns to face her. "Do you need me to hug you?"

Molly laughs even as her eyes fill again. She crosses the distance to him and wraps her arms around his waist, her ear fitting perfectly right over his heart. After a few thudding beats, he relaxes and drapes his arms around her.

His voice rumbles in her ear, sounding far away despite her proximity to its source. "I think there may be some women's clothes upstairs. John's last girlfriend before I left practically lived here and she cleared out fairly quickly when they broke up."

"Did she have decent taste?"

"Dreadful taste in men. Surprisingly decent taste in clothing, for a librarian."

"Beggars can't be choosers, I suppose."

Molly looks up at him, savoring a view she's never seen. She stifles an urge to kiss the most prominent mole on his neck and pulls away.

"By the way, my bow isn't silly," she says.

"It is a bit silly," he grumbles.

"It's not."

"You're right." he sighs. "On you, it's not the least bit silly. I started calling it that in my head because it was everywhere I looked. You were everywhere I looked. It drove me crazy."

"It's been so gloomy I thought yellow would be fun."

"It was like a bloody beacon. A light house. Signal flares on the highway."

"I get it, Sherlock. Now where are your towels?"

"Cupboard to the left of the sink."

"Thank you," she says, and heads to the bathroom. She stops in the doorway. "Sherlock?"

"Hmm?"

"Did you mean it, about maybe wanting to, you know. Later?"

"Of course. Did you mean it?"

"Well, yes, but I never thought you'd want to."

"Well, I rather thought I'd been making a fool of myself about it, since I came back. I thought it was quite obvious."

Molly has been staring at the door jamb, picking at a spot of chipped paint with her fingernail, unable to meet his eyes. She looks up at him now, bewildered. He looks up from the tea cup he's been staring at, his face careful, his eyes darting around frantically before landing on her face.

"No, Sherlock. It hasn't been obvious at all. I thought you were sad, that day we—solved crimes together. But I thought. I thought you were just sad you couldn't be what I wanted."

"Oh you utter fool," he says, and before Molly can figure out if he's talking about her or him, he's crossed the room and has her head in his hands and his mouth pressed to hers. She gasps and he seizes the opportunity, taking her bottom lip between his teeth and sucking gently. "You silly woman," he says as he releases it.

"I am not silly," she says, pulling back and looking up at him again. "When was it ever obvious? When you said you were happy for me? When you avoided me and the lab for weeks at a time?"

"Molly," he whispers, resting his forehead against hers. "Think. What did I actually say that day?"

She'd run it all through her head over and over, the entire day, shamefully more than she's recalled her first date with Tom. The two of them, standing in that hallway, his voice pitched so low. _I hope you'll be very happy. _

"Oh," she says, closing her eyes. "I guess that's not quite the same, is it?"

"No, Molly Hooper, it's not. And do you think that if I'd been perfectly fine with how things had gone that I would have avoided you?"

"No," she says. "But it still wasn't _obvious_, you git."

"Do you want me to make it crystal clear?"

"Yes please."

He kisses her again, so deeply that Molly feels it in her knees and for a few seconds she's outside of herself, watching Sherlock Holmes snog her in his kitchen, and then she's yanked back to herself by the incredible realness of Sherlock's erection against her abdomen. Twenty four hours ago she had been putting on this yellow dress and had been engaged to a perfectly nice man and now she's halfway out of that dress (when had he unzipped it?) and yanking Sherlock's shirt tail out of his trousers like she's been doing it all her life as he pulls her into his bedroom. He shuts and locks the door and presses her against it, kissing her neck and working her dress the rest of the way down her body.

Molly shivers as the cold air hits her and he wraps her arms around his waist. Has he always been this big? She's always thought of him as willowy, but now, this close, as he bends into her and almost lifts her off her feet, she's absolutely engulfed by him.

He doesn't remove her bra (new, white with yellow trim) but pushes the cups down. He looks at her breasts, lips parted, grazing his thumbs gently over the nipples, as if trying to decide which one to savor first.

"The right one is more sensitive," she says.

"You used to have it pierced," he replies in wonder. "Tiny scars."

"Did I actually manage to keep a secret from Sherlock Holmes?"

"Perhaps," he says, and wraps his lips around the pebbled peak.

"Fuck," Molly says, throwing her head back and grabbing his shoulders. It's then she realizes he's wearing entirely too much clothing and pushes the dressing gown off of his shoulders. He divests himself of it, pausing only to switch to her left nipple, swirling his tongue around it and sucking lightly while roughly pinching her other one. After a few torturous seconds, he releases both, places a kiss on her sternum and works his way further down, kneeling in front her, his hands nearly spanning her waist. When he reaches her navel, he hooks both thumbs around the waistband of her knickers (they match the bra, of course) and pulls them down.

His mouth is on her before she can even step completely out of them, his tongue thrusting between her lips and his nose nestled in her curls. He looks up at her, eyes glinting and dark with arousal as he lifts her leg over his shoulder, opening her up to him as he finds her center and _sucks_. Her grip on his silky hair has to be painful but he doesn't protest. It doesn't take long. It never takes long with this even when it's subpar but this is Sherlock and God it's incredible. His strong hands hold her in place as she writhes against his mouth, not caring what she looks like or she sounds like. A few more well placed flicks of his absolutely indecent tongue and every part of her tenses before the wave rushes through her.

When it's over, Sherlock takes her leg off his shoulder. He sits back on his heels and eases her onto his lap, one hand across her back and the other holding the back of her neck as he kisses her. Her muscles are gelatinous, but the press of his hard cock against her still swollen clit energizes her enough to begin working on his shirt buttons.

"Did you like that?" she says, kissing his shiny mouth and biting his lip. She works her across his jaw to his ear and pulls the lobe into her mouth.

"Yes," he says. "Did you?"

"Maybe a little, if you couldn't tell." She finds a spot on his neck, right where it meets his shoulder, which makes his dick jump beneath her when she sucks on it.

"Molly, if you'd like to do it on the bed instead of the floor you should probably stand up. Otherwise I'm not sure I can be responsible for my actions."

Molly looks over her shoulder at the hardwood floor and the rather threadbare Aubusson rug and decides against the risk of carpet burn. She stands up clumsily, her legs still a bit rubbery. Sherlock rises in one fluid movement. He shucks his shirt while Molly lays kisses all over his chest. He pulls her to the bed and sits her down on the end, standing in front of her as he undoes his trousers and pushes them down, along with his pants. She unhooks her bra and shrugs out of it, watching him, eyes wide, as he steps out of his trousers and kicks them away.

Sherlock observes her, head tilted, stroking himself slowly. She pushes herself back onto the bed, resting on her elbows, knees slightly splayed. He joins her on the bed and she opens wide for him as he settles between her legs. Their eyes lock, and in the moment before he pushes into her, she is aware of every sound in the room. Their shallow breathing, the city noises outside, a fly buzzing at the window and the rush of blood in her ears. He leans in to kiss her, slowly and sweetly, then rests his head against hers, their breaths mingling as he slides inside her.

She squeezes her eyes shut and inhales. He is thicker than Tom, if a little shorter, but she doesn't mind. It's something she's craved, in fact. Her first serious boyfriend had quite a lot going on in the girth department, and she'd come to love the almost painful friction.

Just as she begins to admonish herself for comparing Sherlock to other men, he pulls out slowly, almost all the way, and then slams into her, obliterating every particle of thought in her head. Her eyes fly open, meeting his rather mirthful gaze.

"What are you thinking about?" he whispers, pulling out and rolling his hips into her again, this time slowly, making certain to grind against her in just the right way before pulling back again.

"I honestly don't remember," she says, truthfully.

"Mmm, good," he says, closing his eyes and setting a languorous rhythm. Her hips rise to meet his thrusts and he sighs. "You were thinking rather loudly." He presses his body more closely to hers and shifts one of her legs higher on his back, quickening his pace.

"You feel so good," she says.

"Do I? Better than—anyone else. Ever?"

"Oh god, yes."

And then they don't say anything more, the sound of their bodies meeting and their gasping breath adding to the ambient noise and soon all she hears is the slap of his skin on hers and the pounding of her own heart. The heat builds in her again and she chases it, closing her eyes and clasping him to her. He feels the change in her body and pulls her closer, one arm underneath her and the other on her hip and he kisses her as the wave overtakes her again. As the intensity subsides, he sits back on his heels, holding her by the hips and slamming her onto him over and over. He looks completely wrecked, his hair everywhere, mouth swollen and hanging open, his whole body flushed. She can't imagine how wanton she must look, but she thinks, judging by the way he's looking at her, that she must think she's beautiful.

"I love you," Molly whispers as his pace increases. He nods and closes his eyes and pulls her to him one last time, fingers digging into her hips as he lets out a low moan. His hands knead her as he pulses inside her, and she reaches down to place a hand over his. He pulls out and collapses beside her, pulling her close and tucking his head under her chin.

"That was—good," he gasps.

"Yeah?" she says, running her hands through his sweaty curls.

"Yes. And if you want to, after you have your cry and all of that. If you want to do that again. And other things. Like, I don't know. Science. That'd be good, too."

"Okay," she says, tears stinging her eyes.

He smiles and sits up, pulling the blanket over them and settling his head back on her chest and they fall asleep, weaving each other's breathing into the sounds of the city around them.


End file.
